Now, workgroups can use Acrobat 7.0 and Adobe PDF to manage a range of essential business activities such as assembling documents from multiple sources, creating intelligent forms, and more securely collaborating on projects inside and outside the firewall.

For the first time, Acrobat 7.0 Professional customers can now include virtually anyone in an electronic review of a PDF document by enabling access to commenting tools in free Adobe Reader 7.0 software.

The Acrobat 7.0 family, the latest update to the Adobe Intelligent Document platform, now offers enhanced integration with Adobe LiveCycle software. The inclusion of Adobe LiveCycle Designer, the company’s professional form design tool, with Acrobat 7.0 Professional provides users the ability to create XML and PDF forms that can be integrated into back-end systems.

Also, Acrobat 7.0 Professional and Acrobat 7.0 Standard are tightly integrated with Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server. The combination enables organisations to apply and manage document policies for helping control access, auditing, expiration, and revocation rights to a PDF document.

The Acrobat 7.0 family offers different functionality to address specific customer workflows. Acrobat 7.0 Professional provides more advanced control over engineering and design documents for technical and creative workgroups that rely on specialised software such as CAD and publishing applications.

Adobe also announced Adobe Reader 7.0, the company’s free, universal client software. The product, which allows users to view and print Adobe PDF files across various operating systems, hardware and mobile device platforms, now offers more powerful capabilities, as well. Adobe Reader users can participate in document reviews, have Yahoo! Search capabilities at their fingertips and can interact with 3D objects placed in PDF.

The product is also the client for intelligent document services, enabling individuals to participate in business processes, interact with many types of specialised content more securely on- and off-line, and enforce security and control policies on PDF files.